


If you have to.

by quietrook



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Not Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-21 23:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietrook/pseuds/quietrook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little peek inside the head of Dr. Hermann Gottlieb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you have to.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't romantic, as the tag said.  
> There might be implications, but it is not a shipping fanfiction.
> 
> This is my opinion. It doesn't have to be yours.
> 
> I didn't revise this, and I know it's obvious. I didn't want to spend a week fixing it and making it better because it was painful enough to write in the first place.

Breathing

Don’t think about how difficult it is sometimes. Don’t linger on the thought that you can barely move without support, and don’t dare to let anyone see you this way. Breathe, too quickly, too much, and feel the air rush in. Try to catch it as it leaves just as quickly. Try to hold on to it and when you can’t, pretend you can. Pretend you aren’t breathless. Pretend you aren’t pathetically weak. You’re too important to worry about this right now; there are problems to solve and if they know that you’re only standing through sheer willpower, breathing only because you’re focusing on just that, they will mock you. They’ll treat you like a child, unreliable. You walk by them with something one could only call arrogance, and you breathe.

*

Loathing

It’s only half-right, and you try to ignore the other half as long as you can. Do you hate him because he’s messy and raw? Because his methods are unorthodox, and the results are uncertain? Perhaps you hate his pure energy, the way he throws himself into his work and thoroughly enjoys it. When was it that you stopped running numbers to satiate your own thirst, and began doing it to please someone else’s need for solutions? Is it loathing, truly, or envy? You don’t want to answer; your pride wont let you admit that you hate him because he makes you hate yourself, so you sneer and you deride, and ignore the black pool of self loathing that boils inside. 

You correct his models with a ferocity that surprises you, with a need that burns in you. You need to be right; you need to prove that you’re the true scientist, whether to him or yourself or Pentecost you aren’t sure, you just know that you need to. You can’t lose to this maniac covered in Kaiju viscera. You can’t.

*

Curiosity

What is this? How does it work? How does he get his answers? He doesn’t even use the scientific method, as far as you can tell, just dives in headfirst and somehow finds answers. He doesn’t start with a hypothesis. He doesn’t carefully devise an experiment. Does he even record his data, or is his knowledge imprinted in all that God awful ink? He’s unorganized and brash and

Intriguing. What is it like to feel things so intense that it leaves you shaking? What is it like to see the world through a technicolor filter? You want to know. You have to know what it’s like to lose all semblance of control, you need to let go, for once in your life. Around this… imbecile, this brilliant idiot, you can’t help but loosen the strings a little at a time.

You aren’t sure that you care anymore. You just want to find that spark you’re missing.

*

Control

Or, more importantly, his lack thereof. That complete and utter—! Still, you admire his drive. He’d destroy himself for knowledge. It doesn’t matter if he dies, as long as he can just grasp that shred of information. If they won’t help him, he’ll blatantly ignore the rules, strike out on his own, and nearly kill himself. Control.

You don’t know what to think when you find him, incoherent and bleeding, still half-connected to the bloody brain. You think his side of the room has never looked  
so appealing, and you’ve never wanted this so much. Control.

When he wakes up, you’ll call him all manner of names, but it won’t change the fact that you caught a brief glance of something unfathomable, and you want to go fathom it.

*

Loathing II  
You aren’t being drawn into the whirlwind science of your so-called rival. You aren’t thinking that he’ll destroy anything in his way to get his answers, and you certainly aren’t thinking that one of these days he’s going to get himself killed and you might actually miss sharing a lab with one of the most brilliant people you’ve ever met.

*

Drifting

It’s not that you’re worried that the man will kill himself. Not mainly. You tell yourself it’s to understand the Kaiju, and that’s certainly true. Who knows what you could find out? A large part of it, not that you’d confess to it, is that you want to be inside his head, to see what makes those gears turn. You’re only partially troubled by the thought that he’ll be inside yours.

Only a little.

Only a lot.

But it doesn’t matter, you insist, because the two of you can do so much more if you work together. There’s no doubt.

*

Moving

You can’t say that you’re shocked. You knew it would happen. If you feel any surprise at all, it stems from the fact that you assumed it would happen sooner. The string was already too thin when you met; it’s amazing that it took so long to snap.

Breathe.

You take one long glance at the mess sprawled across the floor before you force yourself to look away. How long had you stared? How long were you holding your breath? You aren’t sure, but it was long enough to make you dizzy.

Move.

You’re aware that you’ve been standing, motionless in the doorway, for a really long time. Suddenly you’re hyper aware of every aching joint and you don’t know if you can walk but then you do, and you can’t stop. 

Control.

Of course. Why would you be anything but calm? After all, he was always going to destroy himself. You knew. You were taught to stand on your own feet and, disregarding the fact that it’s more difficult for you than most, you grit your teeth and do it.

C o n t r o l.

It doesn’t do to rely on people. If you want something done right, you do it yourself. If you want answers, you find them your way. You don’t rely on some haphazard that can barely remember his own identity some nights. You don’t rely on a science that has no rules.

CONTROL.

If there is one thing you know it is that you can’t depend on people. People will let you down and the only one you can really count on is yourself. You know. You told yourself repeatedly that, even when you were inside his head, even when you were so close you could feel his heartbeat, you could pull out of it at any time. You could quit and leave and move back to your side of the lab.  
You told yourself that.

Moving.  
You notify someone. You close his eyes because they’re bloodshot and still widened in the wake of an answer.  
You pace and you write and you scream only a little and then they come, they take him and you watch.  
And when they’re gone, you force yourself to carry on.

You can breathe, if you have to.


End file.
